July 16, 2005

The parents went to Kingston for the weekend.

At the improv course we were doing fairy tales.  We managed to do Snow White in as little as 30 seconds!

Dinner was Arby's.

Saw Louis Malle's

July 15, 2005

Got some more Prince Valiant comics.

Dinner was spaghetti.

Saw the DVD of Barry Levinson's

July 14, 2005

Dreamed (in the morning nap) of reading in a British comics annual that before

Dinner was the rest of the ham.

It rained for the first time in a long spell.

Saw Jacques Demy's fairy tale fantasy

Saw the last of the new batch of

Baked rye bread overnight.

July 13, 2005

Dreamed again of visiting our old Sackville house, and asking "Is it real this time?"

Saw March of the Penguins at Bayview Village.  It's an entertaining nature documentary.  The parents saw Ladies in Lavender at the same place.  My movie started later, so I had time to kill. (One thing I did was work on a jigsaw puzzle in the lobby.)

Dinner was Mandarin Restaurant. Unfortunately, I ate too much when I still wasn't over my cold.  I got sick when we came home, but maybe that was going to happen sooner or later.

I was going to see Jean-Luc Godard's Masculine Feminine at the Cinematheque, but there wasn't enough time to spare after dinner, and I felt unwell anyway.

Got a bunch of Dick Tracy, Rusty Riley, Sad Sack, Jane Arden and Roy Rogers comics

July 12, 2005

I'm still feeling a bit drowsy because of my cold.  I had a nap in the early afternoon.

Went shopping.

Dinner was chicken (which I fried).

The Common Room group went bowling at East York Centre.  I had a hard time getting there and finding the place, so I was the last to arrive.  Then I had quite a low score.

Started typing my October diary entries.

July 11, 2005

Got some more daily comics pages from 1968 and 1970.  (I read them the same day.)

Dinner was shrimp.

The choir rehearsed for the mass on Sunday.  There was a heated scene caused by someone who didn't get chosen for the governing committee.  Cathering, who's been undergoing chemotherapy, was there.

The parents picked one more batch of strawberries.

July 10, 2005

Dreamed about elevators.

Saw Rock School at the Royal.  It's a documentary about a guy in Philadelphia with an after-school program teaching kids to perform rock & roll music.

Dinner was spaghetti.

Started reading a series of daily comics pages from The San Francisco Examiner, covering a month in 1943.

July 9, 2005

Dreamed of trying to remember the seven names of the Pacific Coast First Nations that I learned in Grade 7. [I think they were Tlingit, Haida, Nootka, Kwakiutl, Coast Salish, Tsimshian and maybe Bella Coola?]

Still not doing much but reading those Alley Oop comics.

Dinner was roast pork.

July 8, 2005

Felt woozy all day. (I bathed twice.)

Dinner was McDonald's.

Saw the DVD of the first episode of the 1969 BBC miniseries The First Churchills.  The first show broadcast on Masterpiece Theatre, it stars John Neville and Susan Hampshire as the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough in Augustan England.

July 7, 2005

Dreamed of the old pop song "Teen Angel."

Heard about the London bombings.  One of the bombs went off near Tavistock Square, a place I remember. (It has a statue of Gandhi and a monument to conscientious objectors.)

Dinner was pork chops.

I'm not yet over my cold, so I had another lazy day.

Saw the DVD of the first episodes of the second season of Curb Your Enthusiasm.  It's so funny it hurts!

I had an outburst with Mother in the evening (the first in years). It still hurts me that when I had particularly unreasonable teachers to deal with, she and Father stayed out of it because they couldn't deal with unreasonable people, so I had to deal with them on my own.

July 6, 2005

The parents picked some more strawberries in the morning.

Got some Alley Oop comics.

Went down to Second City and straightened out my registration.

John and Kathrine came over for dinner, which was pizza and the rest of the lasagna.

John helped fix the water pipe, so now we have hot water again.

July 5, 2005

Dreamed of a computer game with a dream sequence; a New York Review of Books article on a disaster involving students from Greenland.

Went shopping.

We got a new strap for my watch, and would have got a new battery, but they couldn't open the case!

Dinner was salmon.

Got some Captain Easy comics.

July 4, 2005

Dreamed of the Eddie Murphy movie Trading Places.

Got some more Lone Ranger comic strips.

I'm under the weather, so I cancelled this week's singing lesson.

Dinner was lasagna.

Heated water on the stove and had a very shallow bath. [Our hot water was temporarily disconnected.]

Saw the first episode (again) of the second season of Six Feet Under, this time on DVD.

July 3, 2005

Dreamed of turning on a TV and finding the sitcom Friends (which I've never watched) on every channel; Mother and I wandering through a modern town in eastern Turkey; belatedly getting my stuff together to leave with a group of people; coming last and not having time to tie my shoes.

We did the accounts for our used book business.  For the first half of 2005 our profit was about $400.

Saw Ridley Scott's crusader epic Kingdom of Heaven at the Bloor.  Overlong and a bit sluggish, but it had some intelligence.  Best for the siege climax. [The director's cut is better.

Dinner was pizza.

July 2, 2005

"He has a mean way of being happy"--Deadwood

Rearranged my comics again.

Dinner was pork chops.

We drove to the shore.

Saw Variety Lights, one of Federico Fellini's first movies, at the Cinematheque.  Pretty good.

July 1, 2005

There's another leak in one of the water pipes so we'll have to go without hot water for a day or two.

Helped Father shift the big bookcase so he can get at that pipe.

We had a hard time getting the higher piece of drywall in place in my room.  Father had to shave quite a bit off the top.

Dinner was takeout Chinese food.

Went to a Karaoke Meetup at XO.  I sang "Beyond the Sea" for the first time.

Saw the start of the first season of Deadwood on DVD.  It's a brilliant "show all the warts" western. (Nice touch making the hero a native of Canada...)

June 30, 2005

The parents went out in the morning and picked tons of strawberries!

Got a couple of Rip Kirby reprints and one of Frank Godwin's 1930s strip Connie.

We've started replacing the drywall on the side of my room near the bathroom.

Baked whole wheat bread.

Dinner was KFC.

Saw the DVD of Tol'able David, a silent movie about an adolescent hillbilly taking responsibility for his family (and killing some varmints).

Saw the start of a new batch of SCTV DVDs (from late 1981). The first episode was the classic one with the Russian TV network 3CP1!

June 29, 2005

My voice was a bit rough at today's singing lesson. (I've been singing a lot in an effort to learn my Gluck piece.) Giuseppe advised me to skip singing for a couple of days.

Saw The Plastic Age, a silent movie about a college athlete (that 1920s obsession) co-starring the great Clara Bow.

Dinner was steak.

I was going to go to a Karaoke Meetin event, but when I got there it turned out that it wouldn't start for another hour and a half.  Besides, I came to my senses and realized that I should be resting my voice.  So I went home.

June 28, 2005

"In a star, it's called temperament; when a chorus girl does it, it's just bad taste"--42nd Street

Dreamed of playing a version of Monopoly involving solving the kidnapping of an heiress; the start of Alfred Hitchcock's World War II movie Lifeboat (which I haven't seen), with several ocean liners sinking in a colour background.

Went shopping.

Got another batch of comics from Barry King in Korea.

Started reading Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.

Saw the DVD of the silent movie The Show-Off.  Louise Brooks had a supporting role.

Dinner was roast chicken.

Saw the Lloyd Bacon-Busby Berkeley musical 42nd Street (for the second time) in an outdoor screening at Dundas Square.  Some great dance numbers!  Some other Meetin people were going to see it with me, but they decided it was too old for them.

June 27, 2005

Dreamed of meeting in the street a group marching against health care cutbacks, and signing their petition.

Baked raisin bread.

Moira recorded the "O Del Mio Dolce Ardor" accompaniment for me.

The new bathroom sink is finally installed.

Saw Max Linder's silent comedy Seven Years Bad Luck on DVD.  It was one of the only American movies made by Linder, a famous comedian in France.

Dinner was spaghetti.

Went to the Geneva Centre's year-end party.  They had a karaoke machine and I sang "Can't Help Falling in Love" and "Dancing in the Streets."

Saw James Cameron's action-oriented sequel Aliens at the Royal.  It was overlong, with one climactic thrill too many--like the original Alien--and had a lot of cliches (e.g. the early "people in charge treat her as crazy" scene). But overall it was quite skillful and entertaining.

June 26, 2005

Daniel Day-Lewis (evaluating a newly built suburban house) "This isn't a home!  It's a place to keep a TV set dry!"--The Ballad of Jack and Rose

Dreamed of spreading a huge amount of honey on a single slice of bread.

Saw Rebecca Miller's The Ballad of Jack and Rose at the Paradise.  It's a fine character study.

Dinner was chicken curry.

Went to a Games Linkup in an aparment southeast of Bloor and Sherbourne.  There were ten people there!  We played Balderdash, Apples to Apples (which I brought) and Wizard, a trump game with a deck of cards including four wizards (which always win) and four jesters (which always lose). In the auction stage you guess how many tricks you'll win, and the challenge is to win that exact number, neither more nor less, an interesting strategic challenge.

June 25, 2005

"How many of our politicians dare to talk like adults about the problem of Red China?"--Anti-Intellectualism in American Life

"Let's go say a prayer for a boy who couldn't run as fast as me"--closing line, Angels With Dirty Faces

Dreamed of Ted Baxter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

My second improv class was the first with our regular teacher Sandy (who resembles Nate on Six Feet Under). We did a fun exercise in which we stood in a circle and took turns passing the direction around, and if someone said "Freakout!" we'd run into the centre and all yell at the same time.  We also took turns producing fragments of a story.

Dinner was McDonald's.

We rented the video of Michael Curtiz' Angels With Dirty Faces. (We'd taped it off TVOntario a week ago, but it got taped over.) James Cagney's terrific as the gangster contending with his childhood friend, Father Pat O'Brien, for the allegiance of the Dead End Kids.  It's the first Cagney movie I saw, back when I was 19, and what a revelation it was!

Finished Anti-Intellectualism in American Life.  Original.

June 24, 2005

"Cows and chickens make better friends than any of the people I've met in Paris"--Camille

Dreamed of sleeping overnight on a train.

John came over and he and Father spent a long time on the plumbing connections. (They've found several links.) The water got turned off upstairs, and the cold water will only get turned back on tomorrow.

Dinner was scalloped potatoes and ham.

Went to see the new Italian movie Vento di Terra at the Cinematheque.  Too depressing for me!  After 20 minutes, I left and walked over to Nathan Phillips Square. (A Linkup group saw the movie, but I only met up with them afterward.)

I saw the Cinematheque's second movie, George Cukor's  Camille (for the second time).  In this one Greta Garbo played a character instead of just being herself!  Too bad that her costar Robert Taylor seemed bush-league next to her.

June 23, 2005

Dreamed of sliding down a long, diagonal outdoor curtain in the morning, from my bedroom to the place where they were having breakfast. (By the time I got there, it was lunchtime!)

Saw the DVD of Steven Spielberg's The Sugarland Express (for the second time). It's an excellent debut (from before Spielberg started making blockbuster hits), with Goldie Hawn in fine form.  Bit I could have done without the scene involving a Road Runner cartoon.

Headache!

Dinner was roast chicken.

Saw the DVD of the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 version of The Hellcats, a 1960s movie about infiltrating a female biker gang.

June 22, 2005

"The more certain progressive education was of its techniques, the less explicit it was about its goals--perhaps in this respect it offered a parable on American life"--Anti-Intellectualism in American Life

"You hate me, and I like you.  It's really stimulating"--The Magician

Dreamed of hiking on a park trail in a hilly, wooded area; having diarrhea and leaving a big discharge on the trail; getting into a rowboat with no oars.

At today's singing lesson I started on Gluck's "O Del Mio Dolce Ardor." It's pretty hard.

Went shopping.

Got a collection of George Baker's The Sad Sack cartoons depicting life in the U.S. Army in World War II.

Went to the Geneva Centre picnic.  I only saw a couple of people I knew.

Saw Ingmar Bergman's The Magician at the Cinematheque.  Quite good.

June 21, 2005

Dreamed of a mystery of finding a pin, and matching it to a pinhole on a billfold; trying to find a map showing the location of San Francisco's airport; the Gilbert and Sullivan song "A Policeman's Lot Is Not a Happy One."

John came over and did some more work on the house.  We got a new sink for the bathroom--too bad that the old one got thrown out before the new one became operational.

Went to the Cinematheque and bought a whole lot of tickets for the summer season.

Dinner was fettucine in pesto sauce (which I cooked).

Saw the DVD of Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Story (for the second time).  One of the greats!  There was also a film of seven directors from around the world discussing what Ozu meant to them. (Aki Kaurismaki was a hoot!)

June 20, 2005

"There is an element of moral overstrain and a curious lack of humor among American educationists which will perhaps remain a mystery to those more worldly minds that are locked out of their mental universe. The more humdrum the task the educationists have to undertake, the nobler and more exalted their music grows"--Anti-Intellectualism in American Life

John Gilbert: "Ah, the glories of love!"

Greta Garbo: "Mm"--Queen Christina

Dreamed of being in a long TV special about the Titanic.

Dinner was ham.

That Pagliacci chorus we were singing in the choral concert is still going around in my head.

Saw Rouben Mamoulian's Queen Christina (for the second time, I think) at the Cinematheque.  Greta Garbo brings some Marlene Dietrich-type sexual ambiguity to the role of a cross-dressing queen in 17th Century Sweden.  Pretty corny Hollywood hokum:  I barely stayed awake for the famous final closeup.

June 19, 2005

Dreamed of seeing the dreadful Burt Reynolds-Dolly Parton musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas on a screen with almost 180 degrees visibility; visiting our old Sackville house (for the last time) and feeling a dead calm in the air; Russell Garcia's music from The Time Machine; seeing that the ditches around the Sackville house's garden needed deepening.

Printed out my September diary entries.

Donald joined us for dinner at Swiss Chalet.  We were going to eat at Red Lobster, but Father took a wrong turn and it took a long time to get there, then it turned out that we'd have had to wait half an hour just to get seated!

June 18, 2005

Had my first improv class at Second City.  I had trouble pretending I was in a zoo.

Dinner was McDonald's.

Baked rye bread.

June 17, 2005

Dreamed of learning a new song; seeing a stage musical but leaving just before the finale.

Got some The Spirit reprints, and some Prince Valiant and Smilin' Jack comics. (I also got an unordered second copy of those Popeye comics.)

Sitll haven't received any confirmation of being registered in the improv course.  So I went down to the Second City area and tried to confirm it.  I couldn't, but at least I found out where the place is.

Father and John tore out a whole wall on one side of my room as part of their home improvement.

Dinner was salmon.

The choir had its year-end concert. (This time my family was on time.) They had a pitch for contributions.